Strategy

By Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group Product Stewardship (PS) schemes are one of several ways to drive waste out of landfill and back into the productive economy. They “encourage” industry to fund the collection and recycling of their goods once they reach the end of their productive life. Products which lend themselves to PS systems […]

By Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group Australians use an estimated 5 billion single use plastic bags (supb’s) per year. Sounds like a lot but this represents only about 20,000 tonnes of plastic or 0.04% of the waste generated in Australia per year. If all of these plastic bags go to landfill they represent just 0.1% […]

By Mike Ritchie – Managing Director, MRA Consulting Group The problem of illegal dumping We all hear the horror stories of illegal landfill operations, cowboy waste operators dumping waste on land, the covert filling of gullies by unscrupulous transporters wanting to avoid landfill fees. These practices undermine the whole intent of our waste regulatory structure […]

By James Moverley, MRA Consulting Group Sustainability Victoria (SV) has released Round 2 of the Victorian Litter Innovation Fund. This $700,000 fund is a component of the Victorian Litter Plan and provides support for the Victorian community to fund innovative approaches that prevent and reduce the impact of litter and illegal dumping. Over $300,000 was […]

By Mike Ritchie – Managing Director, MRA Consulting Group Since the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Waste and Resource Recovery Governance Reform in Victoria in 2013, Victoria has pushed ahead rapidly with a strategic infrastructure approach to waste infrastructure reform. The Ministerial Advisory Committee report identified the need for much more coordinated approaches to the planning […]

By Mike Ritchie – Director, MRA Consulting Group The decision to increase the levy to $103/t over 4 years will send a strong pricing signal to recyclers and waste generators in South Australia. To recyclers it is a signal to invest in new services and infrastructure and to grow jobs. To waste generators it is […]

By Virginia Brunton – Principal Consultant (Organics) and Mike Ritchie – Director, MRA Consulting Group The Great Barrier Reef is exposed to increasing pressures from climate change, rising sea temperatures, ocean acidification, land-based runoff and other pressures. The summer of 2016 has been bad for the Great Barrier Reef (the Reef), one of Australia’s most […]

By Mike Ritchie – Director, MRA Consulting Group Plastic pollution of waterways and oceans is a real problem. We need to fix it. Plastic was only invented 100 years ago and now is ubiquitous in our economies and lifestyles. It is also ubiquitous in our pollution. From microbeads to plastic bottles and fish nets plastic […]

By Mike Ritchie – Director, MRA Consulting Group In September 2015 in New York, the 193 members of the United Nations (UN) member states agreed to the goals and objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda). The agreement outlines 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) across a range of significant global initiatives that […]

By Ron Wainberg – Technical Director, MRA Consulting Group Energy from Waste (EfW) is very well established overseas, but in Australia it has yet to get off the ground. The reasons for this are to be found in a complex combination of different historical factors: adequate landfill capacity, poor financial incentives, unfavourable public perceptions and lack […]

Over the last few months the national debate around a ban on microbeads has picked up. Last November, MRA argued the need for a national ban on microbeads. We said they were pernicious and a pollutant that should never have been permitted in the first place. It is nice to know US President Obama reads […]

“MRA has once again won the Best Small Consultancy in Australia Award” as determined by Inside Waste readers said Jacqueline Ong the editor of Inside Waste. “MRA received a perfect score of 3 from a possible 3, given that it won all categories in its group” she said. The annual Consultants Review survey asks industry representatives from […]